Here's an imagined family album of (mostly) photos of my uncle.
Doppelgangers
1.
When my young Uncle Doug dresses
as Santa for my first grade
class,
he decides to visit the next room
and meets a second Santa there.
2.
Posed in his football uniform,
he looks like the Heisman Trophy.
Poised on crutches, he looks like
Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
3.
Here’s Uncle Doug in naval
uniform,
with rows and rows of midshipmen
before he left Annapolis.
Here’s Uncle Doug in coat and tie
with
rows and rows of new Ford employees
before his promotions began.
4.
Back when everyone wore the same
tennis whites, my uncle stands
with
Arthur Ashe as he hosts the Ford
tournament at Hilton Head.
5.
As his son Doug grows up,
he looks more and more like
his father, and his father looks
less and less like himself
though they still play tennis,
dress whites in the twilight.
6.
One patient dresses like another.
The hospital robes are standard
issue.
So’s the liver cancer – as those
greedy
cells keep doubling, doubling,
doubling
until he was done.
